COP27: African ministers explore ways to scale up food production to feed the continent and strengthen resilience | African Development Bank

African agriculture ministers attending the United Nations climate summit in Egypt reiterated their commitment to working with development partners to unlock the continent’s agricultural potential.

At the special ministerial session, there was a strong consensus that Africa can feed itself if it is supported with green finance and climate-smart technology to boost agricultural productivity.

The African Development Bank organized the event to enable countries to explore ways to strengthen agricultural resilience through adaptation and mitigation. Participating ministers shared success stories and challenges from their respective agricultural policies.

Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani, Agriculture Minister of Ivory Coast, said: “We must be sovereign in our countries’ struggle against food insecurity and the best way is to find funding for agriculture. We must adapt and find solutions to our problems in the face of the disasters we have seen here and there: droughts, floods, cyclones, and so on.”

He added that disruptions related to the war in Ukraine should provide an incentive for Africa to readjust its agriculture to achieve food sovereignty.

The Rwandan Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Geraldine Mukeshimana, said a key challenge for Africa was a lack of resources to scale up innovative processes to produce enough food.

“Countries are not late with policies — they are not late with implementation, but what matters is how you scale them to make an impact and change lives,” she said. She added: “We can do a million things, but if these initiatives don’t put food on the table and people can’t make a living, nothing will be done.”

She said Rwanda has had some successes in food production because of its policy of involving farmers, citizens, the private sector and civil society in agricultural policy implementation.

Dr. Opening the session, Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank Group, said it was time for the continent to maximize its huge agricultural potential through innovation and green finance to produce enough food.

Adesina said: “I know there are technologies that we can use to feed Africa. I know the platform is there, and to do it at scale. I know there is support for Africa to do this.”

Adesina mentioned many African Development Bank initiatives to boost food sovereignty. These include the Technology for African Agricultural Transformation Initiative, which has enabled Ethiopia to become self-sufficient in wheat production with plans to export to Kenya and Djibouti by 2023.

The bank also rolled out a $1.5 billion emergency food production facility to boost production in response to recent increases in food and energy prices due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It also supports countries in developing agro-industrial processing zones and value chains.

The head of the bank added: “I don’t believe Africa should go anywhere with a cap in hand begging for food. Africa must produce food to feed itself and the world – we must not go hungry.”

Sierra Leone’s Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Dr. Abu Bakarr Karim, advocated for more green funding to boost irrigation and support productivity.

He said mechanization has contributed to increased rice production in the country from about 500,000 tons in 2019 to more than 900,000 tons in 2021.

“The president took the bold step of purchasing farm equipment for all 15 farming regions. He placed them under private sector management under a public-private partnership agreement with the government, and it delivered the results,” Minister Karim said.

Senegalese Agriculture Minister Ali Ngouille Ndiaye also pointed to the difficulties of accessing affordable financing to scale up agricultural production. “Banks need to be less conservative. We have great potential and with the desired financing we can produce enough – be it rice, maize, wheat or cassava – to feed the population and even export the rest.”

The Ghanaian Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, shared lessons from the government’s flagship “Plants for Food and Jobs” program aimed at small farmers.

He said the policy entailed increased fertilization from 8 tons per hectare to 25 tons per hectare. This has led to a surplus of grain production, part of which is exported to Ghana’s northern neighbors.

He said Ghana planned to scale up an African Development Bank-funded pilot productivity improvement project that has helped improve food and nutrition security in northern Ghana.

Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, African Union (AU) Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Environmental Sustainability, presented the AU’s programs to support African countries – along with partners such as the African Development Bank – to transform agriculture, mainly through the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP), the Malabo Declaration and the AU’s Agenda 2063.

She said the African Union is also supporting countries to reduce post-harvest losses by focusing on storage facilities, technology and cold storage chain.

“We need to accelerate our initiatives to build resilience in agriculture,” Sacko said, noting that 28 of the 49 countries were making progress toward the program’s goals.

Roy Steiner, Senior Vice President for the Food Initiative at Rockefeller Foundation, urged Africa to believe in its potential to feed itself and take action to realize that ambition through technology and innovation.

He said the continent needs to adapt organic and biological fertility to soil systems to reduce heavy fertilizer imports.

“We need to combine the power of renewable energy with agriculture, including irrigation and mechanization in Africa like we’ve never done before, to harness the huge potential that exists,” Steiner said.